


Summer

by 9_of_Clubs, Quedarius



Series: Alternative Means of Influence [7]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Car Sex, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Magic, Meeting the Parents, New Orleans, Promises, Sexual Tension, and pretty much no angst for once, having to think about the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6118173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though Will and Hannibal's final year of school lurks just around the corner, it's never too late for a few more days of summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

The final hours at school pass by in blurring gouts of time, and all at once, I find myself thinking that there is only one more year in this place, once we have stepped foot on the scarlet train and summer has begun. I tell myself that it is only place, that I will not miss it. But it has never quite occurred to me to think of it as  _ home,  _ until now, when I weigh it against the excitement Will holds at returning to his own. So much of everything that I would have never envisioned to find in myself has been acquired behind these walls—pain, regret, happiness _. Love.  _ The normal things, I suppose, the expected things, the twisting around of my world, for me _.  _ Though truly, I suppose it is not the stone that has held so much of that, different walls have contained those things… Flesh and blood, that breathes, and beats. That looks at me now with excited eyes and eager smiles. Those I will not leave,  _ no matter what.  _ And, Will, Will feels the same, and yet is torn. 

How will I fit in his home that is not me? That I have never touched. What if we go only to find I have no place there at all, beyond the spells and dorms, without either the urgency of terror, binding us, or the welcome comfort of the known places we have built together. In the rooms that hold a part of Will’s heart that is not mine, that he is quite so certain I will slip into without disturbing the waters. I never been the sort to slip. 

All summer, I do not recall being quite so nervous as this. 

In a blink and a breath, we are on the horrible airplane contraption that I had tried and failed to understand so long ago in muggle studies, Will laughing at my distaste over my shoulder, kissing distraction into my side. The seats are made of odd material, and there are too many others around us, screaming children, harried men shoving past with too-big bags they try to hide, I suppose they have no magic to perfectly fit all the clothing that Will had with a snort declared,  _ Come on Hannibal, you’re not going to have anywhere to wear this.  _

He has already warned me, with big innocent eyes, looking suddenly much younger than usual. About. The. Food. 

But as I open my lips to complain, he kisses me, his favorite tactic, a hand coming up to settle on my chest, and the words die in my throat. He shifts closer in the uncomfortable seats, fingers out to wrap around my own. No longer is he fearful to invade my space.

“Tell me about the ocean again.” I murmur as pressure settles tight on my chest, a rush forward and we leap into the air, my stomach dropping inside and lurching. Better than flying, certainly less cold, but not by such a wide margin. The clouds cast magnificent shapes around us which do I confess, catch my attention, and his gaze is warm along my skin, pleased. He drapes himself across me, shoes toed off, armrest lifted, so that he can settle socked feet across my lap. Then low and soothing, to me, soothing, no sound better in the world, he speaks with a brush of fondess. Talks of the warm, sultry, days that await, his imagination spinning sunlit webs around us. 

An elderly woman passes  by in the aisle mid-tale, and smiles down as she walks, understanding peeking around the edges of her mouth and the crinkles of her laugh, as though we share some secret. To her, I realize with a start, as Will breaks off when she leans in to speak. In her eyes we are perfect contentment, the pinnacles of normalcy. I do not know if I could ever apply such a thing to us. 

“I’m flying home from my daughter’s wedding.” Her laugh rolls in a deeper twang than sometimes coats Will’s voice. A new sound for me, welcoming and warm, rolling twists of word, instead of the sharp varieties I have become accustomed to. “You better watch out, I know that look.” It’s Will, her eyes turn on. “You might be next.” 

Teasing lilts flit through our connection and his grin widens, delighted, I huff and turn away, but he squeezes my wrist. For a moment the future looms high again, but I cast it off. We are here now, there is little else worth considering.

But the thoughts of a stranger, dancing in happiness, lodge in my own.  _ Are we? Could we?  _

The airport is unfamiliar territory. I have stepped foot in the muggle areas of King's Cross, but only in passing fleets, to find portkey, floo, or other magical device that would spirit us home. I wonder what Aunt is doing presently, but she had responded only with pleasure that I would go to see Will. Wrote back about visiting old friends and good company. No overt relief that I have proven myself functional enough in the stress of travel, she is far too carefully considerate for that, but certainly the subtle undertones sounded between the words. 

She is not incorrect in her assessments. It is certainly not the moment of encounter I am accustomed to before finding myself returned to the quiet sanctuary of walls. It is loud and milling, people rustling with their overlarge pieces of luggage, which they are forced to haul, by hand, or on ungainly carts if they cannot carry them all, and the narrow hallways swell cramped. But it is only distaste and displeasure in me. No panic lurking in the corners. 

In any case, we are fortunately, not so similarly burdened, I have never been quite as grateful for magic as I am in at present, and Will draws me expertly through the maze of people and hallways, as blaring voices from the walls yell things about arrivals and departures, we dart around families reuniting and people swearing at times painted on the tall walls that shift and change.  _ Technology _ . I know. But our destination remains mystery. I allow him to lead me, unquestioning.

Then suddenly we pause, sweaty and tired, as though we have journeyed a great journey indeed. Across the world, but I am not yet quite aware we are not in London any longer, the domed walls showing only sky and sun. 

“He should meet us somewhere around here.” Will holds my hand still, but he’s looking into the faces of the crowd with growing eagerness. “I should have charged my phone in the last terminal, but…” Crooked smile, unapologetic of his oversight, I want to kiss him, but there are so many people around me, hesitation, and I miss my moment, because he’s pulled away, leaving me with our bags, to dart in the opposite direction, a grin falling across his lips, and I swear a little yelp of joy that sends me whirling down his emotions with him. Loud in him, even in the echoes reverberating lives relieved happiness that is almost raucous. A flavor of joy that could not have originated in me. There’s nuanced simplicity to it, it is pure, in the way Will is when he opens himself completely, spreads from every last part of him, in the way that reminds me how he is capable of filling in all my shatters. 

“Dad!”  _ That  _ exclaim is yelled, his arms wrapping around a tall man that emerges as the rest of the crowd falls away in my sight. The father that Will speaks of so highly, the man he holds in such high regard, chatters about and compares himself to and defends even against no enemies. He is broad in a way Will has not yet achieved, and perhaps might never, his hair tousled, but not the same untamable mass, or perhaps simply shorter cut. 

It is, it is simply more than strange, journal, to see parts of Will painted onto somebody else, the same perplexed expression forming while he shifts awkward weight from foot to foot, looking down at the son who is clutching him suddenly, in bewilderment. 

I watch him, unblinking. Waiting. 

But bewilderment transforms into confusion and then shifts into the same kind of happiness that shoots across his features and touches up to his eyes. They are a part of each other, Will was formed from this man. In my world of orphanages, I find I cannot fathom that exactly. Whatever ways he has gone about it, he has contributed to molding Will, an influence. And now holds him, albeit in slightly clumsy bend of arms, as though he is the single most important part of the universe. 

If he had grasped him in any other way, I might have been resentful, that Will had left my side, run scampering off to someone who holds as much sway as I.  (But for me, he would leave him. The thought tastes ugly in my mouth, where once it might have been smug with pleasure.)  I had not, in truth, known how I might react. Jealously, I had envisioned; I am not particularly good at sharing. But in exhaled relief, with deep ache somewhere, I taste there is jealousy, but of something else perhaps, of the way the man’s shoulders drop, acclimating to the hug, and he pulls Will in with fierce protectiveness and speaks low, not completely certain that he’s not imagining the fact that his son has just launched himself in a hello, instead of the usual dance, occasional surl, and mostly often slightly stilted first of moments of meeting. His smile is a mixture of sheepish and proud,  _ What have I done to deserve this?  _ blended with  _ I’ll take it.  _ Broad sloping happiness. And I decide, though of course, I have already done so a thousand times, that I will do my best to have this man like me. Though I am not sure I am altogether good at ventures such as that. Charm, that I have overflowing stocks of, but I think my best charming would not endear me here.

“Missed you too, son.” 

He says over Will, and then, as though he senses me watching, brings his eyes up and our gazes lock. Appraising, but not in a calculating sort of way, perhaps observing. Curious, but unsure. I am not sure either, so I simply look back. In a moment of silent decision, we agree to leave it to Will to bridge the gap and drop our gazes back to him, both. 

I am unsure why but the creeping unease is drenching me doubly, all at once, unsettling through my stomach. I cannot imagine that this man would approve of everything our relationship has wrought, the darkening of Will’s eyes, the drips of blood around us. 

Would this man like to be at his son’s wedding? I can’t help but wonder. 

I imagine, the answer is yes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Will**

* * *

 

_“No, listen, I am—”_

_“Shh, you’re gonna—”_

_“Do not_ shush _me, I am not to be—”_

_“Hannibal, please, just hold—”_

_“_ **_Will_ ** _.”_

Hannibal says my name, and it’s with all the command and sincerity he can muster, drawing unsteadily to his whole height to look down at me.

“I. Am not. Drunk.”

The disheveled state of his clothes, the way he slurs the words, and his completely ruffled hair would beg to differ. But I have known him for a long time now, and so I do my best to stifle my giggles, my own head buzzing pleasantly with whisky stolen from the cupboard over the fridge, and only say, deadpan,

“Of course not.”

He _is_ awfully endearing, as his mouth twists unhappily, he pulls at his shirt as if just now realizing it’s a mess, but it’s nearing the early hours of the morning and my dad will be home any minute, and I’m not so sure _he_ would find a drunken Hannibal as amusing as I do.

“You don’ believe me.”

The smile wins after all, though I still manage not to laugh, just shove lightly at him, guiding him down the hall to my bedroom, and he sighs, leans on me as though the gravity in the room has somehow shifted.

“I’m not sure _I_ believe me,” he muses, as I half-drag him now, nudge the door open with my shoulder. It sticks, on hot nights like this. The scent of the distant shore fills my room, of a night living and crawling, and stars. It sounds like cricket song, and it’s somehow absolutely right and absolutely strange at the same time to have Hannibal riffling through the mess atop my dresser against the backdrop of my posters, my flannel sheets and my dusty gray curtains.

“Okay, we need… we need to get you to bed,” I say, wondering sluggishly just how to do that, and he breaks into what I would normally describe as a wolfish grin but, tempered by alcohol, is only a crooked smile and terrible, comically raised brows..

“Oh, _do_ we, do we need to get you—rather, me, to…”

His hands are pushing up the hem of my shirt, sliding over skin, and he pulls me to him, but I twist away, laughing,

“No, I—shhh, really Hannibal I mean—”

Outside, gravel crunches as a car pulls up the drive, and my heart stops.

“Fuck.”

“Indeed,” Hannibal nods solemnly, swaying on his feet.

I fall to my knees, fling open the trunk at the foot of my bed. Parchment, inkwells, broken quills push around my fingers as I scrabble through them, and everything smells faintly of magic, makes me strangely homesick despite being home right now. Finally, tucked under an old Care of Magical Creatures textbook, I find my wand, and realize it’s useless to me only after it’s in my hand again.

_Shit_.

Behind me, Hannibal has started to slump, back to the dresser, eyes sliding closed despite his best efforts. That’s good, at least. The click of the front door opening echos through the hall, and I turn to him.

“Do you have your…?”

I see his wand sticking haphazardly out of his back pocket before his brain registers what I’m asking, and I snatch it, the feeling strange and too smooth under the pads of my fingers.

“Hey,” he protests half-heartedly, but then I’m pressing it into his hand, and the sound of workboots being kicked off comes next, two loud, muffled thumps, and I look wildly at Hannibal,

“Can you?”

His eyes scrunch as he looks at me, breaks down the words, and I would almost giggle again, if I wasn’t so scared of getting in trouble; I can all but _see_ him processing them. But he gets it, his hand in my hand, swings his arm out in a lackadaisical motion and murmurs,

“muffliato.”

And the pronunciation is about two vowels short, but _something_ happens, and I guess I’ll just have to hope that it’s enough to keep my dad from hearing hushed giggles and thumping floorboards in here as I try to wrangle a very intoxicated Hannibal to bed.

“Come here,” I say, and it’s not without warmth, fond exasperation filling my words, rounding them so that when I say his name again, the sound of it is a shade closer to comforting. Affection, the desire to feel him against me again, is thrumming through my veins. And alcohol, yeah, there’s certainly that too. First sips stolen from the bottle between kisses, lips tasting sweet and smoky when they pressed, tongues next, sliding together as his body moved to mine, his hand found a sleepy, sloppy rhythm that drew all manner of sounds from me I’m glad my dad was not here for, because I would have been oblivious to his presence. _Was_ oblivious, to anything, but the feeling of Hannibal’s teeth nipping lightly at my ear and his hips rocking, until I caught sight of the time on the clock above the aging television.

Unfinished business. _But_ , I think to myself, _we have all the time in the world_.

“Will. _Will,”_  he huffs, as my hands push and turn him, start tugging his shirt free of where he’d just messily tucked it, “‘f I was drunk, could I do this?”

I quirk a brow, waiting,  prepared for all kinds of performance; nose touching, line walking, and alphabet reciting among the first things that come to mind.

But this is not anyone. This is Hannibal.

I’m a mess with his buttons, clumsily pawing at the top two before giving up, and then, of course, he draws himself up taller, fills his chest, and starts monologuing,

“ _Già eran quasi che aterzate l’ore, del tempo che omne stella n’è lucente—_ ”

I pull at his shirt, and he puts his arms up obediently over his head. It comes off in a mostly smooth arc of pale blue, tangling only briefly, and I laugh as he twirls once, a dance, feel his ribs and the warmth of skin and muscles beneath my hands as he spins.

“ _quando m’apparve Amor subita mente, cui... essenza membrar mi dà orrore._ ”

“What—is that _Italian_?”

He doesn’t answer, only shoots me a lofty glare, _how dare I_ , and I pull one of my tee shirts over his head in retaliation. When his face reappears through the neckhole, he leans forward for a sloppy, grinning kiss, his arms still trapped.

“Don’t interrupt, darling,” he murmurs dreamily, then shakes hair from his eyes, folds his arms up into the sleeves and goes on, ignoring my rolled eyes.

“ _Allegro mi sembrava..._ ”

Pants now, and I’m praying the charm worked, because he trips, laughing, as I pull them from his legs, falls back onto the edge of the bed with a squeal of springs and a thumping of the headboard against the wall. He kicks his legs out, a parody of his usual control and grace, and then I resign, sleepily, that that will have to do, because there’s no way I’m getting any more clothing onto him in this state.

That I look at him, all legs in socked feet, underwear, and one of my shirts, and feel something lurch painfully in my chest, is… is _completely_ unrelated.

I smile fondly, try to push him to lie down, thinking I’ll go over and turn the lamp off before sleeping in the cot dad set up beneath the window, before telling me awkwardly but firmly that Hannibal and I were by no means to share a bed, but he grabs me, and my efforts overcompensate, sending us both sprawling back against the coverlet. He’s beneath me, his skin almost hot where it touches mine, and he smells warm and clean, faintly like detergent. Like me, like him and like _home._ His lax smile fades into something quieter, more thoughtful, and some little curl of contemplation plays briefly over us both. I’m not actively trying to listen to him, but with Hannibal and I, the boundaries of where one ends and the other begins have always been a little blurry. His hand finds my cheek, strokes down my jaw, and my breath catches in my throat.

_“Amor tenendo meo core in mano._ ”

I understand enough of it, through him, and through the reverent way his eyes flicker up to me, to know what he means. When we kiss again, it’s soft. A promise.

“Where did you find the time to learn Italian?” I wonder quietly as I roll off him, defeated. I’m not sure I want to know the answer, and he scrunches his nose,

“Not just _Italian_ , Will, _medieval_ Italian. And I don’t, but ‘s Dante. Obviously.”

“Of course,” I laugh, pull him close again, and he presses his lips to mine, greedily, catches me off-guard. We melt together, the first golden notes of connection, and he hums happily between our mouths.

“When did _you_ learn to hold your whiskey so well?” he asks, almost poutily, his eyes falling closed again.

In the living room, I hear the buzz of the TV turning on, the muffled drone of voices. The ritual is as familiar to me as the scatter of plastic stars on my ceiling, the letters and postcards that paper the wall next to my bed. Dad isn’t really watching, I know, couldn’t care less about what fills the screen and fills his head, so long as _something_ does. I think it keeps him from dwelling too long on empty rooms.

Sometimes I imagine, in moments of morbidity, what would have happened if we’d never escaped Mason. I wonder if they would have visited him, unravelled his memories and picked them clean so that Will Graham ceased to be, became nothing but a name on a drunken tongue and a picture in a plain, fading album; a squirm of uncertainty that maybe we’re not past that possibility. I still have dreams that end in blood, and I know I’m not alone in that.

“Mm. I guess it runs in the family,” I murmur back, smoothing Hannibal’s hair from his face. Remind myself that home is currently between my hands.

He shifts underneath me, brows drawn, and pulls the sheet over us both, more or less.

“Did your father always drink?”

I can’t help but tense. It’s a point of contention, sure, a sensitive spot. It’s something that I’ve spent a long time defending—to friends, or what passed for them before my letter came, to Memaw and on one memorable, very uncomfortable occasion, to a teacher who asked with cloying sympathy as we waited for him to pick me up, late. It’s something I have no desire to defend now, to Hannibal. I’ve clearly not suffered for it, and right now we’re sleepy and content and enjoying one last hazy summer before teetering over the precipice into real life.

“It’s tradition,” I joke instead. He seems to understand, doesn’t say anything more about it.

_Or_ —I look blearily at him and have to stifle another laugh—he fell asleep while waiting for me to answer. Terrible. His mouth is open, slightly, and I close my eyes, listen to the soft sound of his breathing, before reaching across him and turning out the light.

“I love you so goddamn much sometimes,” I whisper against his neck as I settle beside him, drift pleasantly into sleep. And I have the decency to say one half-coherent prayer into the void that my dad won’t check on us during the night, find us tangled and half dressed like this, because the couch would be an awfully lonely place to be banished to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so excited to bring back drunk Hannibal, in a slightly less emotionally fraught moment than the last time that we saw him :) He is a very endearing drunk, when not dealing with all that unrequited love business.  
> Welcome back everyone, and welcome to any new readers who've stumbled across this. We are posting summer as its own work, because it actually grew pretty sizable, and it really stands as its own arc, separately from the rest of Year Seven. Thursday and Saturday as usual, you know the drill.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

The sun has already risen in the sky when I awaken, but it is still early. The softness of Will’s body is tucked around mine, hair tickling the bottom of my chin, his arms wrapped easy over my chest, one foot crept its way to curve around my ankle. He is not exactly snoring, but breathing deeply, no imagination yet of opening his eyes, firmly lost to the sleep that surrounds him.  Still exhausted, I imagine, from our exploration the day before...of the forest, of...other things. The rays of warmth, stronger here than they ever are in London, beating down into our skin, sinking below the surface. A sultry flush to the salt kissed wind.

My lips curve in memory of hours spent.

It is fortunate that we have saved this journey for after I have become of age or we might have found ourselves severely limited. The wonders of magic never cease when one is in the muggle world, especially, I press my lips lightly along the top of his head as he shifts and sprawls further about me, when one has a boyfriend who is always taking up more and more space in his world, metaphorically acceptable, literally troublesome, when said boyfriend is also in possession of a mattress barely fit for one. His father had brought a cot into the room, with a shrug of his shoulders...But when I had laid eyes on the actual affair, the alternative began to look suddenly tempting.

_Perhaps you should join me in mine instead. Or should I presume to be sleeping with half of me hanging off for the rest of the summer?_

He had then, in an exacting fashion, forgetting for a moment his father’s edict of separate sleep, demonstrated to me exactly how it would be that we could both fit, fingers tangling through my hair, knees on either side of my chest, leaning in to kiss and kiss, force me back along the pillows. It had certainly been something to consider, but in the end, a flick of my wand, as ever, to the rescue. We attempt to remain each in our own bed, but in relieved twining, allow ourselves when his dad is away for days on end, working… though more often than that, we toe the line.

For now, I kiss him again and quietly dislodge myself, watch in amusement as he sleepily protests and then clings to a pillow instead and turns around to continue his rest. So easily, I am replaced. A mental note to tease later. I cannot resist though, I’m afraid, brushing my fingers soft through his hair as I rise, tangling them into the unruly mop and then down, to find the soft skin of neck. But I will jar him from his sleep if I continue, so unhappily I withdraw. Wander out into the emptiness of the house.

It is all ours today and that is how I like it to be. No possible obstacles, no undesired conversations, only the freedom of space and each other. In this moment, it is our house, his and mine, and the notion sits comfortably into my skin.

_Breakfast then,_ I decide—a for once uninterrupted span of time to prepare the meal, peace in the motions of dicing and frying, in the familiar sounds that dance around me.

The kitchen is small, but comfortable, more than serviceable, with a small table in the corner. I wipe it down and then set it for two, find somewhere in the back of the cupboard, almost hidden, gathering dust, an unused set of plates that is all of the same design, and fold paper towels into more napkinly shapes to lay beside each setting. The vase of fresh flowers that uncharacteristically exists in this space moved to the center from where they are just sort of set beneath the window. _Memaw brings them by,_ Will had explained when he’d caught me gazing, bewildered, s _he says a house needs some life_. I appreciate that they are real, pause to inhale the fragrance of blooms.

It is not precisely what I would have chosen, any of it, but it will do, in this moment.

I attempt not to imagine, though it is hard here, where there is so much life couched into every corner, an example of a hope, what it would look like if it were our own.

But I do, as I carry myself over to find the ingredients for the meal, humming along to a music that does not exist, I cannot help myself. My mind already winding down the path.

It would be a bit of a chaos, I have already resigned myself to that, between the two of us, my tastes in one direction, his in another, but he would allow me to decide where I insisted and I would, grudgingly, the same. I would wish him to be, after all, a part of the physical impression of our life. I would want to him to be present, not drowned, contrary to what it might seem. Many rooms we would share with each other, our signatures flowing in and out. There would be art, but there would be pictures too, of moments had and breathed, our existence found there, victorious, and we would press ourselves into the foundations of the place. He, and me, and _us,_ made manifest.

It would be beautiful.

Not borrowed, as the Room of Requirement, or held in snatched moments, as here, it would be ours. We would have roots.

Rooms left empty with which to grow, to fill, perhaps, a room for Bev and Alana, a space for guests, for Will’s father to visit, for my Aunt, for the people who have touched us to filter in and out of the base of our lives. I have not fully envisioned a life with base, but now it comes to knock at my door.

The eggs sizzle as I flip them. A too-hot drop darting to burn against my skin.

“Hannibal?”

Drowsy lilts of words come around me and pull me back to present, visions of could be fading away to what is. I send him a small smile over my shoulder, run my eyes along the mussed form, still stumbling as he yawns into the kitchen, fumbling directly, I know, to begin to make coffee around me.

We dance around each other as we both aim to complete our tasks. A hand in around his waist to stir the vegetables, a side step to my right so he can set the pot to brew. We settle into a wordless rhythm, our beats falling into harmony, maneuvering the space together without need for speech.  I know better than to attempt conversation, in any case, until he has the, _other_ , object of his affections in his grasp, steam fogging his glasses and desperate sips to awaken.

It will still be minutes before coherency, but I am capable of patience.

“An interesting fashion choice.” I hum in his ear when it is safe, bringing him his plate of eggs, the potatoes I have made set on the table, sausage browned to perfection. Draped around his shoulders, in a way that rather makes my mouth go dry, is one of my shirts, clumsily misbuttoned, wrinkled from where it was thrown over our shoulders the night before, but it suits. Dwarfs him a little, almost completely hides the worn boxers beneath, but I cannot imagine it appearing any more attractive than it does now and impishly he grins at me, knowing. I huff and smirk. “But I do not think it is a fair trade for forcing me into one of yours.”

_Taking advantage of the impaired._ I’d scolded with false disappointment, when really it was more of a kind of proud amusement, pleased that he’d taken what he wanted when I’d been all too happy to give it, always entranced by his mischief.

“But you were so adorable.” His voice muffles around the rim of his mug. “Much cuter than I am now, Hannibal.” He raises his eyebrow, knowing I can’t argue with that. “Right?”

I snap my teeth at him to forgo response and take my own seat. For a moment, there is silence, as we busy ourselves filling plates and settling in. But then our eyes both flit up at the same time, to find one another’s across the table. Our table.

“Good morning, Hannibal.” He says with a laugh, covered in my shirt, perfectly disheveled, still the faintest threads of surl in his body, but quickly vanishing into a smile. Mine and mine and mine.

“Good morning, Will.”

Every day forever, journal, I would wish to experience this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Will**

* * *

 

The heat  _ has  _ to break sometime. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. For nearly a week, it’s been oppressive, sticky with humidity, painting our clothes tacky to our skin and making even the smallest task unbearable. The heaviness of the air suggests a storm, but for now the only clouds remain distant and thin.

And while I’m not exactly a fan of sweating my ass off, I feel worse for Hannibal. At least I’m  _ used  _ to it; though we didn’t always live here, summer has always meant green swells of heat and the pulse of distant thunder, be it on the balcony at Memaw’s, or the kitchen of our apartment on Lake Erie, cooled by a single, lazy, ceiling fan.

Apparently, not as such with Hannibal. I think of the mild days spent at the summer cottage last year, of weak sun and pleasant breeze, and it’s no wonder the only clothes he owns that border on appropriate for this weather are the few stiff shirts he’d apparently bought specifically for this trip. 

He does love to supplement his wardrobe. But had I thought about it, I might have suggested something a little less… stuffy. 

Then again, I think, as I watch the flicker of muscles in his forearms, sleeves rolled up, as he darts between cabinet to stove, stirring and eyeing and chopping, maybe not. I do enjoy the way that undone buttons bare the expanse of his throat, the way the skin beneath is flushed, the fabric clings. He raises a brow, catching me in the act, and though his hair is somewhat wilted from its usual, neat arrangement, he smiles wryly as he asks me to pass the basil.

Days later, the air is still thick and heavy, and even Hannibal has to admit it’s just too much for starch and buttons. It’s jarring, but somehow perfect when I pad down the hallway in the morning, miserable in boxers and bare feet, and find Hannibal working the coffee maker in plain white short sleeves; a little tight around the shoulders, the chest, and I realize that he’s borrowed from my closet. His eyes warn me not to comment; he is not pleased with the arrangement, but he doesn’t need to worry; I couldn’t summon words if I tried. I’m too busy staring, mouth agape; he looks… well, he looks  _ really good _ . As I try to remember how to breathe, his expression softens, a trace of that same playfulness in it that tells me I have a lot to look forward to when my dad is no longer sleeping in the next room.

He also loves being admired, I know. And I have no problem satisfying that particular complex.

I watch him now, pants rolled up his calves, waves foaming gently around his ankles. His eyes catch the sun as he squints my direction, a pleased curl of lips. He belongs here as easily as he does anywhere—not because he blends in, by any means, but because he has an air of comfortability everywhere, solely because he’s in his own skin. While the ocean has always made me feel very small, invisible almost, Hannibal uses it as a frame. I can’t imagine a more pleasing picture.

I pocket the thought of tasting the salt on his skin.

“Are we done so soon?”

A blink, a shaking out of my hair, and he’s walking towards me, smile full of layers that I’d love to explore.

“Done?”

He sits neatly beside me on the hood of the Volkswagen, brushing hopelessly at the dirty paint first. 

“You’re not enjoying the waves as I have been,” he says, opening his palms, turning his smile to me with raised brows. “What else shall we do? Build castles in the sand?”

I laugh, look down at my own hands, “We could. But the tide’s coming in, it’ll take them as fast as we make them.”

He looks out over the water, and there’s a heaviness that I don’t understand in his gaze as he considers my words. A small, overly-casual note to his voice when he answers,

“Is that any reason not to make them?”

He doesn’t look at me, and I’m not sure what has pulled his gaze away, so I shrug it off, sprawl back against the sun-warmed metal. Let my hands rest on my stomach and close my eyes against the heat. It kisses my skin, turns my vision red, but at least here, this close to the shore, there’s a soft breeze to ruffle my hair.

“By all means. I’ll enjoy the view,” I say, squint one eye open to enjoy his unimpressed look, and he narrows his eyes, though it’s half-hearted.

I close my eyes again, and it’s only moments before I hear the rustle of skin and fabric as he joins me, stretches out across the car.

“I like the beach,” he announces, after a quiet, pleased pause. “I can see why it appeals to you.”

“It suits you,” I say, not opening my eyes. “Maybe, if we ever need a place to—”

_ to run _ , I think, mouth not quite forming the words. A stale note of consideration, that my first impulse is to place our future in a string of safe houses and identities, faces not our own.

Beside me, he stills, even the slow rise and fall of his chest pausing; I’ve ruined the lazy, summer languor we’d been doused in. Always, it sneaks back. Words that whisper of blood, of the garbled sounds from a broken mouth, things that should have no part in this summer-place we’ve made, and I almost regret saying them. But the moment passes, and I decide not to pretend I didn’t think them. He knows what we are as well as I do. No use hiding from the fact.

“...Perhaps.” he says at last, voice curiously flat. I slide my hand from my stomach, seeking his, and I find it between us, give it a faint squeeze.

Above us, the clouds drift by, white and cottony, catch the gold of day’s end. Somewhere down the shore, a family plays, the squeal of laughter and a dog’s bark mingling with the salt air and the crash of waves. For the most flickering of seconds it catches at something in me, a yearning. Not for idyllicy, or simplicity, but for a world that Hannibal and I could build together, the twining of ourselves into everything we touch; a home, a life, that is ours, in all its complexity. 

I lay beside him and  _ want _ .

But I swallow, sick, remembering the feel of power rolling through me as I tore the inside of Mason’s mind to ruins. Daydreams of heartbeats ending in my palms, and of Hannibal, cold and vengeful, as he will be. As we already are. 

There can’t be roots in this for us. Any life we build will always be doused in blood.

Despite the heat, it feels colder.

I shake off the momentary melancholia, and pull myself back to the comfort of the moment.

“Should I make you drive home?” I ask, letting my lips twitch into a wry smile, filling my voice to the brim with light-heartedness. Hannibal looks like he’d been dozing, but at that, his eyes snap open again, wary.

“You are not as funny as you think you are,” he growls, and I grin, hoist myself off the hood.

He almost plowed us into the neighbor’s azaleas in his last attempt, an incident that involved his inability to shift gears and watch the road at the same time, and a great deal of smug laughter from me.

It’s not often that I delight in his failure, it’s just… Well. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded he’s as human as the rest of us.

“Agree to disagree,” I say, grinning, but I take the wheel. I take us home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems the boys are enjoying playing house :) Hannibal in particular must be eager to at the very least have his own kitchen; Will's dad doesn't keep a lot of those high-end ingredients on hand. 
> 
> A slight aside; thank you guys for staying with them. I have been really stressed lately, as I am putting together a poster for a research conference that I'm going to and it's really been a mess, but AMOI is always a place that I've been able to escape to when things irl seem too crazy. That you are still here after so many months of posting to experience this with us means so much to me, and to Ro as well <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

I watch the phantoms of us as though I am looking at them on that strange screen that moves, the velitision, telelooking, watchingvision, in any case, it does not matter, we move through the darkened kitchens before my eyes, playing out the afternoon in wisps of smoke. 

He is laughing and I know it is because he has successfully distracted me into forgetting to pay the proper attention to our meal. I nip him in lip-curling retribution and then purposefully put up deaf ears to the rest of his exhortations... No matter how his fingers wander.

"Hannibal." It comes out somewhere between a demand and a pout and calmly I transfer the vegetables into the pot. A few of them with ragged edges due to the stutter of my hand.  _ You should not touch the man with the knife. A kiss to my throat. I like a little danger.  _

"Were you in need of something?"

He scrunches his face and now it is in turn my moment to laugh.

"Very endearing." I give in and kiss him.

Our echoes linger warm in the space. But in the stillness of night, his face eased away into sleep, untroubled, for now, I feel suddenly anxious all at once, dance in the spell of the moon over the waves. A part of me longs to wake him, to have him scatter the darkness a moment longer. But I do not, sit in stone silence instead, curl myself into the same chair from where I gazed at him earlier, watched the food I'd made find his lips, and marveled, always he is, to me, a marvel, at his easy appreciation of pleasure.

"What?"

More chuckle than word, and I shook my head. To tell him in that moment the truth of my thoughts, the overwhelming quality of his very presence sometimes, was incorrect for the moment. But I know he knew even before the question left his lips. Warmth flitting between us, a reach to cover his hand with mine.

The empty house, a pile of dishes, and the pair of us feeling as gods in our kingdom. A domestic bliss of a sort neither of us had ever encountered. That beckoned out to us with open hands, into which we both fall seamlessly at every possible occasion. In my aunt's house sodden from rain, in this kitchen, in any space together. And even as it takes root, we have already uplifted it from the ground.

But I simply do not know if I could sustain it. This happiness. The last happiness destroyed, and we, so very nearly, again, and there are other shadows lurking in the night that I try not to think of.  _ Names _ I have taken from another’s mind, names that belong to murderers. Murderers whose lives belong to me—that I might take for  _ her  _ and the ever clearer images of a body in the snow, that might be mine, if I considered the syllables a little more closely. The darkness of memory, always in the corner. To simply attempt to ignore seems the coward's path, but I do not know if I wish to think of it either. Though parts of me draw to know more. But to know more...it would be the antithesis to this. I am tasting a possibility, a path open to me, but always, in awareness, I know who I am besides it. Other ways, just as tempting, shrouded in curiosities. 

A noise jars my thoughts, flinches through me, though I have long since ceased to flinch at sudden interruptions. But in this darkness, already on the edge of turmoiled thought, I am on my feet, fists balled. Ready, ready to attack the unclear spectre of enemy.

Will's father blinks back at me from the dimness. Lowering his hand from where it reaches for the cupboard to hold it out towards me instead.

"Easy. Easy, just me." I unclench with a breath, seek to steady the beating of my heart. "Sorry I startled you." I can hear the awkward lilt of familiar uncertainty, a lopsided smile to handle an unexpected situation, "Didn't even see you there honestly." He blinks again, half shifting back to reach into the darkness, pulling out a box of something. I, for my part,  I stand unsure what precisely to offer—should I leave? I try not to think  _ run _ . Apologize for stealing his early morning spaces? For not remaining in the territory that is carved out for me? The house is only ours when we are alone, in the rest of the time, it seems carefully divided.

But then the box is waved in front of my face. "Want some Cookie Crisp?"

Now it is my turn to blink.

And that is how we end up sitting across from each other, mismatched chipped bowls before us and a spoon in both our hands.

"You sure you don't want milk with that?" He asks in a tone that suggests he thinks I'm something close to blasphemous. Half dubious, half entranced.

"No," It comes out curt with unease. I lick my lips and try again, stare at the stale misshapen lumps. "Thank you."

A shrug of his shoulders and he busies himself with eating to pass another minute or two. For the sake of politeness, I bring a spoonful to my lips and nibble carefully. Cringing away as the pungent taste of sugar and what I have learned to identify as  _ chemical  _ in the muggle world assails my tongue.

_ Strange kid _ , I can almost hear him thinking.

"Never had this either, huh?" A very long list falls under that category, it turns out.

I nod. "It is," My mouth struggles for a word, "decidedly unique."

He makes a sound low in his throat, something like a cut off laugh, hastily turned into a cough. 

“Will used to go nuts for this stuff; I just got used to keeping it around I guess. Never thought I’d meet a kid who didn’t like chocolate and sugar.” he looks amused, but there’s an unease still, I am unfamiliar to him, indecipherable, and he adds, quieter, “Sometimes I think that school of yours is a whole other planet."

A world away, indeed, from the lazy days of salt and sea we've spent here. 

"I am not an alien." I murmur low, and he tilts his head up to look at me, and in turn, I envision myself from where he sits, his gaze on the shadows that hollow my face, down the sharpening slopes of my cheek, the foreign lilt of my tongue, the last thing he expected. The farthest thing from what he understands.

We lapse into silence.

The moon moves across the sky and the crickets sing loud into the air before he speaks again.

"So you and Will are..." It comes forced but determined on his tongue. "You're seeing each other?"

I cannot in truth help the curve of lip that comes at that, and he rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, the obvious. But you can't expect me not to—" he struggles for the right phrase and I peer silently at him, "question your intentions."

Curious, I tilt my head, ask, brazen, because if we are speaking plainly, we are speaking plainly. 

"Do you question me because you are surprised at who I am?" Accusation lingers implicit on my lips, not precisely meant to be challenging,  but he is determining my intentions and I would like to know his, where I stand, what it is worth, to even attempt. "Or because you are concerned with me?"

It is not exactly meant to be challenging,

"I  _ question _ you," the answer comes with a little snap of fierceness, softened by Will’s brand of eye rolling amusement, dry.  "Because I’d question anyone my son brings home and is serious about." We lock eyes and his voice softens again. "Because he's my son."

As simple and as complicated as that. I pretend to understand it.

"And maybe I haven't always done as right by him as I should have, maybe I’ve let him down where I should have done more, but that’s why I'd expect anyone who wanted to be a part of his life to be better." He's set the bowl aside, leaned in to appraise me with his uncalculating eyes, but searching all the same, trying to see beyond the walls. "If there's one thing I can do right it's make sure to try and see what's good for him, even if he can't."

The sentiment stings a little, rattles the thrum of my breaths, only a half stutter, which he can't make out, strange disappointment unravelling through me, though the defensiveness rises already. Tongue ready to lash cold. But he's speaking again lost in his thoughts, oblivious to the rankling that has occurred before him.

"And I'm not saying you're not good.” 

I pretend that this follow up does not matter, does not matter because I was never insulted by the suggestion I might not be to begin with. Of course not, it does not matter to me what is thought. I know who I am.

“You could be, y'know you're kind of weird, I won't lie to you, and I always thought—well. But that doesn't matter. The point is, you could be all of those things and still be good for him. Even if you think Pizza Hut is inedible, hell Will's mom thought jazz was just noise, and I still—" 

He can see he's lost me and clears his throat. "What I mean to say Hannibal, really, is I have to know that you are gonna love him more than you love yourself."

For the first time, there's no apology in the voice, all firm, a determined setting down of edict that I am forced to acknowledge. "Because I don't think I have to tell you, he'll always love himself second. He'll always love you more. And if you love yourself more and he loves you more, then there's no one left to love him most. He'll put you first, so that's taken care of, but you have to—"

He cuts off and again in a lower tone that curves of old pain, "Because I can tell you're in love or you’re pretty close to, I’m not fool enough to think you can’t be because you’re young, or you’re guys, or whatever. But I've been in love and in that kind of love where it wasn't enough and in the end,” I struggle to ignore the obvious ache, struggle not to let it begin to curve inside of me. “That just hurts everyone. In the end it just hurts him. So you look me in the eye—" I'm not, anymore, I might add, I can’t. "And you promise me you'll love him more and I won't bother you for a single thing ever again."

A version of me looks up at him with crocodile tears and promises.

A version of me promises false, but feels the twist of the lie.

A version of me simply rises, owing him nothing.

But me, the me that I am searches for truths, wonders how I would fare, if my love for him were put on a balance that I had to tip, weighed against other truths of me. It seems a laughable thought, that anything could even come close to comparing. But in the back of my head, I know there are...some things. 

"I do not know if I can." I say in strangled voice and look up at him once more, but add, truth. "But I will always wish to."

He says nothing for a long moment, quietly settling his scores. Perhaps though he does not know entirely, some part of him can see this is not a question of simplicity. Can at least see the words are sincere.

The big clock ticks time away between us. 

“You’ll fight for it?” Finally, he asks instead, and I nod, readily. 

Considering still, he nods in response, leaning back in his chair to look at me. “Okay Hannibal.” And there’s something in it that I can’t entirely recognize, but draws shudders along me, an unmistakable clench of my throat. “I’ll root for you.” 

I did not, do not,  _ need  _ the words. But all the same, to have them...


	6. Chapter 6

**Hannibal |** _Interlude_

* * *

 

Miss Katz,

I had considered _Beverly_ , but decided that was not fully enough to impress upon you the _lack_ of familiarity between us at this very moment. Since you seem to be suffering under certain delusions with regards to it, presently.

Namely.

That _So have you fucked yet?_ and a rather sloppily done winking face, is an appropriate response to, I think, a rather eloquent message to you detailing the finer points of our summer thus far. It was quite a crude missive to receive, Miss Katz. And you must have known there was rather a possibility Will would be reading it over my shoulder.

Or hoped, perhaps, if I am not mistaken.

You may get that smile off of your face, he was quite happily burning his toast at the particular moment of unfolding that charming addition to my existence. Breakfast, or anytime before there has been a sufficient opportunity to brew no less than two pots of coffee, are not Will’s most stellar moments of awareness. Though, I presume you are well aware of this, so perhaps you only intended a jolt, hrm? Well I will have you know I neither choked on, nor spilled, my tea, so, as I said, cease to be pleased with yourself.

In any case, purposefully ill conceived or not, If you are going to meddle then I would appreciate something more than your half-hearted attempts on the matter. This is a whole hearted meddling matter or none at all. And I swear to you, if you use the word _fuck_ again, no, I do not want to hear the litany of other possibilities, you will not get a singular detail from me on the topic. And you will be so forced to attempt to coerce it out of Will, with whom, I can envision with great entertainment, a conversation on the subject might be somewhat less appealing than you hope.

~~You may rest assured, however, awkward and mumbling are not at all how he is when we are~~

Ehm.

Oh, would you like me to continue? My apologies, no need to look so put out. I would suggest that I might have to take up the matter with your girlfriend, this uncanny interest into my private affairs, but I have an inkling that would not go for me in the direction I might hope. You may tell Alana that her smile is not fooling anyone, though it is quite charming. And then you may tell her about how you went about writing your letter, and I am sure, on that point, at least she will agree it was a clumsy, intrusive, thing to send, since her tastes are far more impeccable than yours.

And will then proceed hopefully to wag her finger at you for your terribleness.

(See, Beverly, we are a bit closer now, since I have scolded you— _that_ is how one gracefully offers innuendo.)

My last piece of advice on the issue is to improve your sense of smell. Then you would have to rely on no one at all but yourself to know the goings on around you.

You have been scented ever so wonderfully of late, I believe I failed to mention, what with the stress of the end of the year. A new perfume?

(Again.)

I could pretend instead that you asked me to regale you with great detail on the finer points of cajun cuisine, the proper spice mix for a catfish, the components of a roux, and my own set of specific thoughts on each, which as you know, could go on for pages and pages, and I would expect you, in reparation, to peruse every word of. This, naturally, you would find riveting.

However, though I know you are disappointed, I will only, again, inquire into your summer. I hope it has been passing pleasantly, and that you have properly menaced all those in your general vicinity with your charming wit and excellent candor. And that you have not missed our irreplaceable presences in your life too deeply. We briefly considered we might run away this summer, never to be heard from again, but we knew that we would simply leave too many crushed, and so, dismissed the notion. For your good—we, on our end, haven’t missed you at all. (Well...only briefly, now and again. But some games are better played with teams, you understand. And you can only make one team of two.)

Perhaps some time we should all visit together, maybe next summer… … whatever our plans are then.

In conclusion, I must remind you to ignore whatever Will says and assume I am quite a natural at any and all muggle activities, especially driving. I know he is writing to you as well, and whatever he says, that I almost ran over a cat, that I knocked over the mailbox, (it only swayed a little), that I veered into an ugly Azalea bush (if it had been properly trimmed, it would not have been in my way),  it is all lies and his rather sad attempts to make me seem as though I was not born perfectly skilled at everything I try my hand at. Jealousy is a terrible thing in a relationship, but I am sure it is hard for him, to know that whatever he does in life, he will never have my hand with an automobile.

But truly, Bev, we are happy. Happier, I believe, than we have been in a long time, perhaps happier than we have ever been, your lacking company notwithstanding, of course. We are happy and it is good, and so I have no true desire or need to enhance that in any specific fashion, whatever physicality we share, that is pleasing for me. I am pleased for more, because I am always pleased for more of Will, but it is not...urgent, you are rolling your eyes, evidently it is not urgent, I know, I know. But you know too, fate and circumstance, and all of that. I am happy to entertain your thoughts on the notion, as I am well aware mine are often not exactly on the wavelength of normalcy. Though it is fair to say, neither are Will’s.

But I will only entertain them in full sentences.

And without the word that has been barred as per the above.

We will try to send pictures. ~~_Not those kind of pictures you wretch_ _._~~ But Muggle cameras are terribly slow contraptions, or at least, the one Will’s father has is, I have gathered it might be a bit out of fashion. But who am I to say?

Yours,

Hannibal


	7. Chapter 7

**Will**

* * *

 

“Will, could you come here for a second?”

Dad grunts, and his head appears around the back end of the Volkswagen. I swallow down my nervousness when he gestures, and follow when he points.

“See that?”

A soft noise of sympathy hisses from my lips; what I see is the sadly dangling piece of metal that is the muffler.

“Mhm. That explains the noise,” he sighs, already reaching for his toolbox. “It looks like something really whapped the undercarriage, knocked it loose.”

The side-eye he gives me as he puts the jack in place lets me know just what he thinks of that.

“Any idea how that happened?”

I squirm underneath his eyes, suddenly feeling five and small again. Like that time I spilled cereal on the couch cushion, and just turned it over, hoped he wouldn’t notice. Or the time I made the neighbor kids cry by telling them their parents were going to get divorced. (They did, if you’re interested.)

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I say, affecting my best sheepish grin, “Actually. I hit some junk in the road the day the noise started. That was probably it.”

Nope. Not even close.

“Sorry Dad—I’ll be more careful.”

The truth is, I know exactly how the car came to be in its current state—Hannibal peeled out over a curb yesterday during a very ineffective attempt to teach him to parallel park. Not that my dad will ever hear that from me.

He seems to know anyway—well, at least that it’s not the whole truth—and I don’t do him the disservice of embellishing the lie further. He gives me another of those narrow-eyed glances before sliding under the car.

“See that you do,” his voice echoes hollowly through metal and plastic, and I drag over a stool to watch him work. “I’d uh, I’d hate to see one of you get hurt. Or worse, you know, the car…”

He peeks out around the bumper and grins to let me know he’s teasing.

“Hand me a fourteen?”

I huff a little laugh, but the balance has been shifted back to normalcy, the weight eased off my shoulders. He doesn’t like to scold any more than I like being scolded, and so we move on, as though nothing has happened. I pick through the toolbox for the right attachment. 

“Yeah, thanks Dad,” sarcasm dripping as I pass it to him, but I’m smiling too. More comfortable with snark than sentiment, and it’s no great mystery where I learned that. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He disappears beneath the car again, and we ease into a rhythm, the click of the wrench and the gentle, staticky hum of the radio. I like these moments; just me, him, and the machine. It’s still hot, and sticky, and the shop light he’s rigged from the ceiling of the carport flickers occasionally, but I’ve got a belly full of good food and the warmth of his company, as we settle into a quiet peace that leaves me drowsy.

By the time he hums, satisfied apparently with his work, I’m yawning, head drooping into my hands atop a worktable covered with scattered tools and sawdust, and my mind is drifting pleasantly to Hannibal, presumably still sketching on the deck upstairs, while we have a little light left.

“Actually,” he breaks the silence, wincing a little as he twists himself out from beneath the car, “I’m glad I have you here. There’s uh… there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

I ignore the implied  _ without him _ and nod, clear my throat and pull myself from lazy thoughts of tracing fingers over skin warm with sun,

“Yeah, shoot.”

My attempt at casual falls short as I run through the possibilities. I’m full of  _ muffliato _ s gone wrong, an inch or two of whiskey missing, a new scratch on the car unaccounted for, but, oddly, when Dad turns to me, sluicing his hands clean with gritty, orange muck, it’s he that looks sheepish, not meeting my eyes.

“Well,” he starts, and a smile plucks at my lips at this strange new shade of him— _ are his ears actually red? _ “We’ve missed a lot, with you being away at school, and there’s certain things… things a father should tell his son.”

I’m torn between bemused and concerned, so I try to steer us back to humor.

“Yeah? Like what, like… always put the seat back down, denim matches anything, that kind of stuff?”

“Well… yeah—and it does,” he gestures sharply with one goop-covered hand, and I can’t stop the laugh that follows, “forget what Memaw says, you can wear anything with jeans,”

I smile, shrug,

“No, I got it Dad, don’t worry. You’ve done fine by me.”

A funny look crosses his face, as though he’d rather be somewhere else, including in a suit and tie, than to spit out whatever he’s about to say.

“Well, there is one thing…” he says, wiping his hands very carefully on a shop towel, then twisting it. His brows have drawn in, mouth stretched tight in an expression Memaw calls “the Graham face,” a look of utter haplessness, “I’m sure you’ve already picked up the basics by now…”

And suddenly, I see where this is going.

“Oh, god no—Dad—”

“My dad started with ‘when a man loves a woman,’ but I guess that doesn’t really apply in this case—”

“Please—”

“And I don’t know much about what goes on between men,” he barrels on, like now that he’s started, he’s determined to see it through. I can only groan, insides writhing with embarrassment, and swipe my hands over my face, “But Google has a lot of… uh, a lot of information.”

I only nod, unable to look at him, and pray for a swift death.

“And just because there’s uh, no risk of you know, pregnancy—”

“Oh my god.”

“—That’s no reason not to, you know, be safe.”

“Oh my  _ god _ .”

My face is burning, ears to neck, and I’m intently studying a smear of oil on the ground.

“And, uh, this is the part where, if you were…” I hear him struggle over something only briefly, gesturing helplessly with one big hand, “well, seeing a  _ girl _ , I’d tell you about respecting her, and uh… a couple of other things. Not that—not that that doesn’t apply to Hannibal too, the respect thing. But, well, for the rest…”

My soul has already left my body, so I can’t imagine how this could get any more mortifying, but he turns, shuffles through a pile of books and papers on the workbench, and produces a folded, slightly worse-for-the-wear stack of paper.

“Like I said, I don’t know much about… well. But I understand there’s some things you should know. Before you know, intercourse and whatnot…”

_ Intercourse and whatnot _ . My mind fails to reconcile that phrase with what Hannibal and I have talked about, on occasion.  _ Someday _ , we always thought, unhurried. And then, everything got twisted up, and I thought that... But recently I’d been finding myself curious again. There’ve been a few muggy nights in my room when, sticky skin and caught breaths, it seemed like maybe he, and I came close to asking if— 

If Dad’s goal was to make me totally uninterested in it, then this talk was a wild success.

I look dubiously from the printouts he’s holding out, to the hopeful way he finds my eyes, and I sigh, take them gingerly.

“I— ...thanks, Dad.”

He nods gruffly, pleased. Relieved, too, it seems like, and I wonder how long he’d kept these hidden in his worktable.

“Now can we  _ please  _ be done talking about this?” I ask, feeling hyper-aware of myself. He laughs, a genuine sound, though the awkwardness remains in the way he stands, shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I promise, I’ll  _ never _ bring it up again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triple update today! We have, once again, Bev asking exactly what everyone's thinking.   
> Also, have I mentioned how much I love Dave Graham? I think that a lot of people in fandom dismiss Will's dad as anything from completely absent to actually abusive because of what Will tells Hannibal about family seeming like a foreign concept. But Hannibal at least (and he's usually right) seems to think that somewhere, those "simple times with dad" are there, and that they meant something important to Will. I'd always wanted to explore what seemed like a complicated relationship, and AMOI gave us the perfect template to do that.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

I watch him circle the desk and wait, patient. 

One ring around, another. Slightly agitated, I can see, from the tense set of muscles beneath tan skin, the unnatural ruffle of his hair, the wringing of his fingers. I might cheat, push into the curious aura that emanates from around him, not the frenzy of power reaching, nor the peace of lazy afternoon. But something, something brewing. 

I know enough to know it is not serious between us and so I enjoy the anticipation of pronouncement, the tension slowly growing in the room.

“Will…?” I remind him that he was speaking, but it is almost lazy, a drawl as I lean back as far as his ramshackled chair will allow, take him in with a curious peer, hide my smile as he jumps. Turns to look at me, eyes wide, slightly more than usual, as they meet mine, lips licked. I come forward onto linked fingers and he half steps back on reflex. Part...deer in the headlights (this is a car term,  _ I  _ have never resembled such a thing, you can dismiss Will’s laughter)... part claws. 

“Oh—”

“You were saying?”

“Yes.”

Another circle. My lips thin out in amusement, but he does not seem to notice my struggle for serious composure, only opens his mouth and closes it again. A step in my direction and I mirror him from my seat, lean in, but with a shake of head, he changes his mind, darts farther again and I settle. An interesting game of cat and mouse, do you not think, journal? 

“About your father,” The words are soft as they inquire, attempt to settle without disturbing the turbulence he creates, he sneaks a glance in my direction and then towards the door, but doesn’t sway to either. “He wished to have a discussion with you, yesterday afternoon, I believe— you used the word  _ funniest. _ ” The pull to me takes over and his fingers are reaching out to skim the wood of the table. “and  _ you wouldn’t believe. _ ” They crawl over to mine, one and then the other, walk along the length of the space that separates. In a sudden burst of shuddering sensation, something wraps around my lungs, makes the humid air even thicker, catches my chest. “I,” my gaze traces up the untucked rumpled t-shirt, a size too small, stretched across his form, “wish to laugh. Also...”

We pause with gazes locked. 

“I am in possession of a most—”

Two hands on the wood before me, my chin tips back to find the lines of his body. 

“qualified sense of humor.” 

His breath whispers over my lips and I press up, it would be so easy to clash, to kiss him. But, with centimeters between us, I pause. And he chuckles low, throaty, the fine twist of a snarl blended in. 

“Hannibal.” 

There’s something unbearably agonizing about the way his lips wrap along my name. My neck stretches out towards him, I wish, in all at once clear awareness, for his fingers to be pushing into my hair. Whatever has been brewing inside of him, it seeps slowly into the beats of my blood. Boils. 

_ Say please.  _ His voice dances across my thoughts. 

“You hate funny unless it’s your joke.” 

A heinous accusation, which I rage against as he draws away, the oxygen swelling back into me in a great gout. He snatches himself out of reach, slips through my hold to circle again. And I— I fall back into the chair.

A murmur, “You should relax with yourself,” followed by delight in the way the thought bunches in the ridges of his spine, up the line of his back, “and tell me what is lurking so temptingly behind your skull.” 

“He said I should  _ respect you _ .” The top of Will’s ears are reddening and finally, we approach the heart of the matter. 

A pause for breath, electric. I consider rising, but do not. I offer instead,

“A very thoughtful sentiment. He must know how you get.” Blue eyes are suddenly lasered on me again. “All of those self involved tendencies of yours, thinking of only yourself constantly, obsessing in the mirror. Forgetting all of those around you” One footfall closer, two. He veers to dislodge a stack of rumpled papers hidden in a book, folded and refolded, still newly printed, but worn around the crease lines already. “On.” Closer. “Second.” Closer. “Thought...” 

Pause. 

“Perhaps he was speaking to the wrong person. Are you certain he is aware it was you?”

A huff at that, but neither of us are quite laughing. There is something hungry in the air between us, sparking and dancing. 

A snort, and the pages land between us. 

“He thought these could help us out.” 

I do not even have to glance to know, know with perfect clarity as soon as he lets them loose across the tabletop before me, and without hesitation, I open the third drawer to the right and pull out a crumpled paper bag.

Swallow down a laugh as Will jumps completely now—rather deer, all eyes. Inside there are all manner of interesting things smashed together and pressed down. New scents that had drawn me to explore while he had been occupied elsewhere, scents that had lingered warm and foreign on him just days ago, his face bearing a determined innocence that had betrayed his lack thereof. 

An interesting set of finds. 

“And this?” I smile guilelessly at him, reach out to wrap my fingers around his wrist gently, both of us jolted by the connection of skin, the easing settling of awareness between the spaces of cells. “Can these help us out as well?” He draws into me, a hand finally, blissfully, to trace the outline of my face, brush the edge of my hair. I nuzzle into his hand until he twists it in harder, tugs with a little grin. 

“Maybe.” The awkwardness fades a little from his stance, something coy that I do not believe he is aware he is in possession of filtering in to replace it. I breathe in, sharp, as his fingers rake, just a little more strength behind them. Strength in the bunch of his knuckles, inlaid in the bend of his arm. In him, in us. “I hear they can be helpful, in, uh.” I am wholly entranced by the catch of his lip as he grins, “certain situations.” 

His other hand comes up to touch lightly the enchanted expression on my face, but even that is not enough to break it. 

“Well,” I breathe, swivel the chair as he comes around the desk so that there is nothing in between us anymore but fragile air. “We should not let their potential go to waste. That would be,” he’s in my lap, lips hovering, “—Terrible.” 

“Terrible,” He echos, “yes.”

For once, as our lips meet, we are in perfect agreement. The kiss comes slow, achingly sweet after being denied its due for so long, crashing from the waltz around each other, and already his fingers are undoing the buttons along my chest, pushing the fabric away from my body. His own shirt is lost far more easily, with only a little yanking. 

And then we are skin.

Skin on glorious skin, my arm wrapping around his body, pushing him closer, bending up along his spine to clutch against the back of his head. He shifts, straddles me better and pushes back. 

Perhaps there will need to be more discussion, perhaps we might pause to peruse the papers, so diligently folded, but for now, I fall into sensation and forget to think, the low groan of sounds I do not quite recall making filtering around me, mixing with the heavy gasps he lathes against my ears.

There are no more thoughts of unpleasantries now, only of him, and of me, and the great desire between us to only find more of each other to explore. 

A kiss to the corner of his hips as pants are pulled down, a laugh as he squirms at the play of tickling breath, teeth breaking along the collarbone, kissing and sucking a mark that will remain later, one hand trailing down, another twisting through hair, cupping cheek, gripping to a hard exhale. His, mine, ours. A twist of sheet beneath us somehow as the crickets start their evening song, and the sun drifts lazy along the wide Louisiana sky, fluffy white clouds pinkening as our skin flushes from touch, from heady drifts of pleasure and curls of warmth that have nothing to do with the humidity that hasn’t broken yet, that blurs the edges of our brain, heady, drunk on sensation, on the press of the other against us, Will’s leg curving around my own, pulling the tangle tight. 

He remains, I pause to look at him, at the flushed pant of his skin, the bright sparkle of his eyes, the now swollen scarlet of his lip—cut, just a little—the most exquisite creature in the whole of existence. The thought makes him snort, a hand up to tangle hard, push me down, but it is truth, truth that comforts me and eases me, and finds itself at home in the easy languid smile that I know stretches along me. He kisses it and I lower myself, fluid, back down to taste the slight hint of blood that wells in the corner of mouth, we lie on our sides facing each other. 

“You’re pretty fucking wonderful too.” 

He whispers, insistent, growling, into my ear, and I confess, the words close my eyes, push my head back against the pillows, stutter my heart with contentment, praise creating the faintest hints of a snarl in me, too much sensation in all the best ways. He kisses that too, palms dragging down my chest, fingers spread, as though to catch as much of my skin as he can, and I curve my own into the softness of the backs of his thighs, drag them higher, his body gasping, shifting back against me. 

The sheets kick away, tangle at the foot of the bed, as we move together, wind and bend around each other. A slip and slide of something unusual, something sticky to coat fingers, drag trails across skin—curious, lips bitten, concentration. Then pressure, pressure and pleasure and heat. Slow, at first, muttered laughter, the barest traces of conversation between kisses, redirecting, reattempting, and then  _ right _ , with a clenching of fist into fabric, a lidded gasp. 

This is not the twine of minds, exactly, this is not the unmistakable knowledge of being whole, connected in the most intrinsic way possible, but it burns low and carnal, sensuous as he runs his hand along me, grips a little tighter as his fingers move, thoughtful inside me, press again and again as I arch up from the mattress, grasp longingly into air for his kisses to ground me, and he gives them, offers them freely as I parcel through the sensation that strikes at my core. Sensation is in the mind, it is true, but without the body, there would be nothing to intercept, to acknowledge, to undergo the impossible perfection of Will’s fingers pressing into me as he leans over me and kisses me, inside me, around me, everywhere. 

I leave welts into his arms, and then exchange welts for scratches, down the length of his back, as he pushes into me slow, and we twine. He is everything, he is everywhere, we are everywhere and nowhere together, the slow roll of his hips, careful as he goes deeper, deeper  _ into me _ , the physical manifestation of everything that we are. His fingers along my face to push my hair back, to smile his awkward, crooked smile as he watches me unseam beneath his touch; parts wonderful, parts elation, parts determination. He does not have to try very hard, I think to tell him, but words lose themselves to a gasp and he echos it in kind, louder, in truth, than I am, groaning now too, as my legs shift wider to let him in, as I rock a little around him, and we find a rhythm together. 

_ I love you.  _  I mouth along his cheek as he buries his face in my neck, nuzzles our heads together. 

Clothes fell away, thoughts fell away, and we fall away, together. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Will** | _Interlude_

* * *

 

_I didn’t expect it to be so easy._

_I know your body better than I know my own, every curve and shift of skin, the spots that make your breath go sharp. And still, it’s like each touch is new, not afraid, but shy again. I wonder, as I ease your thigh higher, slide us together—a stutter of thought that’s utterly shaken by the way you breathe my name, clutch my arms—why I can’t remember the first time I touched you. Was it in a hall between classes, was it a static brush of hands at a shared table?_

_Or had I never really touched you until it was with shaking, hungry hands?_

_Or now?_

_The curtains drift with a lazy Gulf breeze, the stars dust a sky that is turning a deep and hazy blue. I’ll remember that color forever, and the lines you draw across my skin, those too._ Please _, you ask against my neck, shivering through me, in you, and I know, if only because we’re inhabiting the same strange spaces, the same night air filling our lungs with each gasp. I hold you like I’m scared you’ll come apart, but really it’s me I’m worried about, already so lost, and you pressed so close._

_I didn’t expect it to be so easy, but we fit as if we were meant to, and you…_

_You shudder one last time, mouth slack against my cheek, and I can’t believe that it’s me that you look at with heavy eyes, like I am something beautiful and whole. Trail your fingers, awestruck, down my jaw._

_It doesn’t change anything, not really. But somehow it does, the tangle of bodies echoing the tangle of minds, and all it takes is one more kiss._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL.  
> We did promise fluff, among other things. We had this image for them almost since day one, and I'm glad that we came to a point where we were able to include it in a way that felt natural. 
> 
> A slightly sad note—I will be away this weekend (I'm presenting a poster at an archaeology conference in LA!) so there will not be an update on Saturday. We will be back Thursday though, and you will probably want to check in with us for that if you liked today's update ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Will**  

* * *

 

There’s always music in New Orleans, it’s one of the things I love about the city. Warm, living sound that wraps you up in brass and bass, picked guitar. Voices greeting each other, pleased exclamations that work their own twang into the melody, the smells of food and coffee each playing their own unique chorus as well. The entire city is jazz.

And then, of course, there’s the _other_ New Orleans. The first time I laid eyes on it, I was eleven years old, wide-eyed, being led through the winding alleys by Jack Crawford. I’d seen the voodoo shops in the muggle wards, seen beads and skulls and tarot cards, stones and charms, candles and powders. But this was something else; this was _real_ magic. Jack nudged me forward through each turn and each shop, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the colors, the creatures, the books that snapped, that were bound in a strange looking leather. Little toy figures of people in colored robes swarmed near the ceiling on brooms, and my mouth had fallen open, finally believing in this other place that Jack had told me about, on the faded blue couch in our tiny apartment, when he said _There’s a place, for kids like you_.

It hasn’t lost its charm, though I don’t stop to marvel at so much now. Mostly I’m watching Hannibal, as he catalogues the people that pass by us, the new scents and sights, fascinated. We spend what feels like hours in a bookstore advertised for its size— _So big, it’s unplottable!_ the rusting sign brags, and we’re not disappointed—strolling through walls upon walls of shelves, tunnels of them, huge teetering stacks that can only be upright through means of magic. He presses me into an alcove, kisses me dizzy, and then leaves me with a smirk until the next darkened nook. I leave the building with a package of new books under my arm, and the feeling of Hannibal’s lips still lingering on mine.

In the next shop, the girl minding the counter has her hair tied in eccentric twists, giving her something of a gorgon’s look. She flips idly through a book while a cup of something dark grows cold beside her, and she barely looks up as Hannibal and I enter, flushed and slightly rumpled, before going back to her book.

Curls of incense pool from burners all over the shop, graying the blocks of weak, yellow sunshine that make it through the dusty windows and heavying my eyes. The center of the shop is dominated by a huge, knobbly tree, branches reaching up several floors, a winding staircase of old and rather unsafe looking wood that meanders around the trunk. Hannibal stands at the bottom and peers up, his lips parting as he tilts his head far enough to take it all in. I get caught somewhere in the bend of his throat, memory lighting as my eyes devour him. I remember him as he was the other night, astride me, his hips rocking a slick, unsteady rhythm while his fingertips dug crescents into my chest. When he came, his head rolled back, mouth open on a silent moan, I swear it was the sight of him like that that pushed me over.

He turns to me, smiles softly, and continues to explore the apothecary.

I peer uninterested into several glass jars of dubious content, pass by a strand of withered bird’s claws. I’m really not any more interested in potions than I was in first year, and so this stop is mainly for Hannibal, who’s already disappeared, delighted, into one of the upper levels. I hum along with the Celestina Warbeck song that’s playing on the battered radio on the counter, look with raised brows at a cauldron full of eyes that follow me as I head deeper into the cramped maze of shelves and tables. The music is muffled back here, drifting quietly along the smells of dust and candlewax. There’s an entire wall made of tiny drawers, a scoop attached to each; I slide one open out of curiosity, and a sweet, spicy smelling powder clouds out, another one yields what looks like human fingernails, and I wrinkle my nose, close it again quickly.

The next room is more interesting; it’s piled floor to ceiling with brass scales, tops, glass containers, lumps of beeswax and clay, and all kinds of devices that I can only guess the function of. Pendants dangle from knobbly wood shelves, a shallow dish swirls with a silver kind of fog. I brush my fingers carefully over a blue velvet display housing two round, silver mirrors. Something is… off about them, and I feel my brow furrow as I try to put my finger on it. It’s not until I get closer, wave my hand over the surface, that I realize what’s so off-putting; my fingertips are reflected in the opposite mirror, not the one they hover over. I laugh a little, intrigued, but before I can toy with them further, there’s a clatter, and several pewter measuring spoons tumble from their shelf to the table surface. I jump, wonder if I somehow caused it, but then I see the gray, fussy looking tom cat swinging his tail from his perch there.

He licks his chops and regards me with yellow eyes as I let out a relieved huff.

“Hey there,”

He blinks, unconcerned

“You scared the shit out of me,” I admit, since it’s just him and me in the room, and I reach my hand out tentatively. Stop just shy of touching him. He sniffs me curiously, then, seeming satisfied, ducks his head so I can scratch behind his ears.

This time, when there’s a noise behind me, I don’t startle, because I know the even, quiet gait.

“Why is it,” he says, “that you always manage to find the most unpleasant, furry thing in a room, and befriend it?”

I smirk, even as the tom opens one eye to glare lazily at Hannibal for interrupting.

“I like you, don’t I?” I turn in time to catch the indignant look he shoots me.

“I am hardly furry—” I would beg to differ, but I say nothing, only widening my grin, “—and if unpleasant, only so because Fate has seen fit to endear me to the most trying creature imaginable.”

He’s stepped into my space, has caught the hem of my shirt between his fingers. He tugs at it as a smile tugs his lips.

“Hannibal,” I tut, leaning my hips forward when he pulls again. I don’t miss the subtle shiver that works through him when I drawl his name, and I think happily about how I’ll use that to my advantage later. “Come on now, that’s no way to talk about yourself.”

I’m pleased to say that my voice wavers only on the very last word, but then I do laugh, and he rolls his eyes, pushes me away.

“Wait, wait,” I manage, grab his wrist, “I’m teasing, come back; I’m sorry.”

When I tug him back, he casts me an unimpressed look that is so reminiscent of the cat still lounging on the shelf that I almost lose the fight with laughter again.

“As you should be,” he chides, very close to me, “Perhaps I should return your birthday present and gift you some manners instead.”

I blink, no witty retort ready. I hadn’t actually thought about presents, had been mostly caught on the idea of finally being able to do magic as I please.

“Though I’ve quite enjoyed corrupting a minor,” Hannibal muses, lays a kiss lightly across my smiling mouth, “I’ll be glad to move on to someone my age.”

“You’ve hardly been in a position to do any corrupting,” I answer with a grin, thinking again of the pound of my hips against him, his hands clenched tight in the sheets. The soft needy noises that left him in time with each thrust.

His brows shoot up, and I flush, wonder if he caught the wander of my thoughts.

“Haven’t I?” he says, cooly amused, and steps me back until my thighs bump against the display behind me. “I do seem to recall the words _please Hannibal_ escaping you quite a lot… _Please Hannibal, I can’t, Please Hannibal, I’m—_ ”

“Well that’s, I mean—” he cuts me off with another kiss, the press of tongue hot, and I forget whatever witty diatribe I was trying to pull together, melt into it.

“Besides,” he pulls back, voice lower, rougher, and the hairs on my arms prickle pleasantly, “I still have a week.”

Before our lips can touch again, the cat yowls loudly, apparently displeased with the direction our conversation has taken, and Hannibal laughs.

“Your friend is right, we should be on our way. Your grandmother was very insistent about dinner time.”

I groan, try in vain to pull him to me again so we can explore exactly what he meant.

“You know, I’ve never liked cats. Or dinners.”

He laughs me away.

“Go on; I have a few things to find still, and you’re being a terrible distraction.”

I press a hand over my chest as I back out of the room, mouth _ouch_ and affect my best stricken look, though I know he’ll see straight through it. I’m smiling as I round the corner, leave him to his browsing.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hannibal | Interlude**

* * *

 

I must confess that it is I who breaks the rules first, creeps on padding feet down to his guest room from mine, as silent as possible around the creaks of the house I do not know. But on this night, it is quiet for me, I pat its walls in gratitude, and I do not set any noises ringing that should not in the darkness, to awake the other inhabitants and ruin the purpose of my quest.

Will is not asleep. Waiting for me, I suspect, my intentions not very quiet. He watches me through the dimness as I move to stand in his doorway, already open, pushed in slow inches to await me invitingly, eyes the outline of my body, dressed as I am in nothing but the silky, tight, embrace of my sleep pants. Worn boldly, increasing the risk that would come with being caught, to be caught wearing only them, but risk has always set my heart beating quicker. He moves up the planes of my body until our eyes meet, and then in moments, I am on the bed, and we are clashing together, hands scrabbling along each other. He divests me carelessly of the fabric, eager fingers twisting it, and I would pause to growl as he yanks, but I am far too busy ridding him of his sweatpants and then there is skin and skin and skin, and I pin him back to the bed, his arms coming to hug around my body, pulling me closer as we kiss. Hungry kisses, kisses as though we have not merely parted hours ago, kisses, his leg wrapping around mine and scraping down, twining, tangling, my hands on either side of his face.

And though I would love to engage in through exploration, mouth over every last inch of him until he is panting and wanting above me, inhale the rife scent of arousal as his cheeks redden slow, blood vessels swelling beneath skin, and the breath has dissipated from between his lips in pleasure, our time is short this night, and every moment is a moment more likely for us to be found and separated. A moment more likely to bring end, so we must take advantage of each one.

“I am already ready.”

I whisper against his lips and watch the shockwaves of the word echo down along him, a shudder that passes into me as he nuzzles his cheek against mine in pleasure, his hand drifting down between us to press along himself, push against the friction of his palm and our bodies together. Intoxicating, the edges of his knuckles graze my stomach, still my lungs.

“Oh, are you?” Breath whispers along me and then air as we shift, twist along each other, my lips smirking in response to the tease on his tongue, along his tongue the taste of me. Impatient, perhaps I am, but always well prepared.  A favorable trait, I should think. And he laughs. “And I see you’re pleased with yourself about that.”

I am, but not as pleased with myself as I am pleased that he is pleased with me, with the unexpected ease he presses a finger into me and then another, grin growing, a low swear under his breath that stutters mine. The vision he conjures of me as he explores, my fingers rucked up inside me, my legs spread wide, is perhaps not so far off from the truth. I brush lips along his skin, and add to the imagery with facts, taste the growl that burns hot through him.

“Very plea-” But it cuts off as he parts my legs wider and then with an unexpectedly determined push which rushes a contented sigh out of me, brings us together, twined inside and out, images fleeing as it becomes harder to think coherently, leaving us only warm against in other in the shared space of our thoughts.

For a moment, I allow my eyes to flutter shut, enjoy the slight burn and the slick pleasure, the relief of being together again, to ease the ever present ache that drags us closer but cannot be acted upon when the sun is in the sky.

And then, all at once with a push of my own, I roll him back, teeth in a smile as he finds my gaze, shocked, for a moment, then eyebrow up, as though merely waiting to see what happens next.  So I show him, straighten slowly, leave him splayed on the mattress and arch up, perform and engage all at once. I sink deeper onto him, when he is fully straddled beneath me, first considering and then, finding it quite to my liking, with a good deal more squeeze. In response he all but writhes, head slamming back against the pillow, lips open, struggling for control and for breath as I move myself along him, stretch the muscles of my spine so that my torso goes long and lean for him, for the hungry currents of his eyes as he’s ridden. Pause at apex arched, catching the moonlight, linger, and release.

He splutters, loud, a groan resounding as his legs bend up behind me, “Goddamn, Hann -” But my hand comes up in a snap of wrist to push against his mouth with a tut. In our hurry, we cast no charms, and it’s only the thin walls and the old door that separate us from the rest of the house.

“Now, now, Will.” He bites against my palm, snarling my lips a little at the sudden twinge of pain, an expression of which he approves, pleased, but loses when I raise myself up in slow, dragging, inches, and then push down around all at once. My own gasp, eyes lidding, lost in the volley of groans. “You’ll have to have more control than that.” A curve of myself lower to whisper in his ear. “Or we just will not be able to continue.”

Then I exchange my hand for my mouth and we’re kissing again, his fingers flat along me, stroking the sweat slicked lines of my bones, catching in a scratch as I fluidly roll my hips. And, oh - the way he is inside of me strums climbing music behind my ears, the sight of him, lost to what I am doing to him, exquisite, always exquisite.

“How are we ever going to get anything done again.” He whispers, almost petulantly in the muddle of air between us and I laugh.

“Other than each other, you mean?”   
  
And for that, he flips us again with a groan, half frustration, half desire, all fondness, and I allow him, let him settle in slow, languid thrusts inside me, resting between my legs and tangling our feet, muffle each other’s sounds and finish together in a litany of touch.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Hannibal -” 

Will’s grandmother sends my name into the lazy afternoon space of the living room, appearing suddenly from nowhere. She would protest, huffing, at the title in full, but it is strange to me to attempt anything else.  _ You may call me  _ _ Nicole, if you can’t manage Memaw, _ she’d said, laughter on her lips -  _ I haven’t been Mrs. Graham in ages _ . But that too, had been incorrect from my tongue. So charmingly, and with quite smooth turn of speech, I’ve managed to avoid name at all for the duration of our two week stay. It’s Will’s birthday now, and our the last evening here before we return the Graham household proper, which has begun, strangely, to figure as home in my thoughts. A lazy morning exploring the last parts of town, strong coffee and sweet pastry, having passed us already, one last evening awaiting, and a warm space to fill in between.  We are all lounging, content, immersed in our own occupations when her lilting voice, never sharp, but always on task, fills the space. 

I set down the summer essay to find her gaze.

“If we’re going to eat before our stomachs stick to the back of our spines, I could use a capable hand in the kitchen.”

A thunk then as Will’s dad sets his crossword down on the coffee table bewildered, and Will looks up from the show he’d been watching rather intently with surprise. They both gape at me with identical faces of confusion for a moment, blue eyes pulled in consternation, mouths slightly agape, then turn in unison to sneak a look at the woman filling the doorway, but in sudden agreement, reach some conclusion all at once, and with a shrug of their shoulders, sink back into their previous positions as though they had never left them at all. 

This display I watch with open amusement, ready to comment, but she intercedes and gracefully reclaims the next words before I can say them. 

“Would you care to join me?” 

And of course, since I have endeavored to be winning so that she may like me and Will will be pleased, by which of course I mean, more winning than comes naturally, I do. 

As we leave, I hear Will’s father in what I am sure he deems a whisper, trained by the loud grind of docks, mutter. “The last time I tried to step foot in there she almost took my head off.” 

And Will’s, awed, grinning, assent, echos. This time though, purposefully loud. His heated approval flushing simultaneously through our connection, so loudly that I have to push him him back with a huff he can’t see. Not the moment for his lurking press into my mind, though  _ he  _ seems to think every moment is the moment for that and in answer only shoves himself forward again, laughter echoing in the depths of my skull, tug of war that threatens to leave me compromised, until we are in the kitchen and I send him firmly a warming hum.

_ Will _ .

Then he retreats, but with something of a mental sticking out of tongue. 

There will be time enough for us to be enmeshed later, I am certain. It  _ is  _ his birthday, after all. I should be nice. Or perhaps I should spank him. How does the tradition go? 

His fault, firmly his fault, I arrange my face into some approximation of angelic as she turns to me, that knowing look that has followed us around without fail after every ehm, energetic enterprise we have undertaken in this house. (and in the gardens, and in the shower, and…) Angelic, I promise, though I cannot quite hide the broad grin. She does not, in any case, appear particularly to disapprove, and her silent, laughing, winks have the distinct advantage of causing Will to blush instantaneously. A blush, I have discovered, does indeed drift all the way down…

I clear my throat. 

“What may I help with?” There’s still that glitter of entertainment in my throat, and I am quite ready to undertake all manner of complicated tasks, but when I look about me, most everything appears to be prepared. Meat heaped on plates, vegetables steaming under glass covers, a cake stand tucked into the corner, heavy metal and old fashioned. Even the pitcher of lemonade has already been hand squeezed and sits frosty awaiting its purpose. 

Only one pot remains on the stove and she moves to stir it. 

“Oh, not too much.” Her smile is wide and flits of Will’s mischief, a bit more calculating than his dad ever manages, thread through. “I just thought we might want to have some time together, you and I, before you leave off again and spirit my grandson far away with you. The two out there are dear, of course.” Her laugh tinkles in the open spaces of the room, sunlight pouring in through the bay windows of the little nook to the side. “but some conversations are better left to kitchens, and we all know they don’t have any business in mine, don’t we?” 

She turns to the pot, wooden spoon up, brandished, my eyes narrow in humming consideration, like a wand. “But you know how to respect a kitchen, don’t you, Hannibal?” 

It’s not a question that begs a response exactly, more of a ringing statement. But I nod all the same. 

“I would not disrupt your order.” 

The right answer, it would seem, because she gives one swift nod and allows. “Good. So be a dear and bring me some cayenne, will you? I know it’s hotter than hell out there, but a measure of soup is always good for the soul.” 

There’s no indication of where one might find cayenne, or which of the cabinets is the one for herbs, but everything in the kitchen, as far as I have observed, has sensical order, flowing in its own rhythm of ease, so I merely watch her a moment, bent over the steam and envision myself in the place, where my arm would extend if need be, follow the draw of the dance to open up a door to a mountain of little bottles, bunches of herbs hanging. 

_ Peppermint, rose oil, lemon grass, bloodroot, cinnamon, valerian root,  paprika, nightshade, cayenne. _

I reach for it triumphant and then pause. Cycle back through the list of herbs I’ve just recited, blink at them, read again, recall, though it seemed quite ordinary at first, that I am not in fact supposed to be in a witch’s home, and then turn, lips curving.

“Does Will know?” I ask curiously, though I cannot imagine that he does, and her eyes twinkle at me, brighter suddenly than before and full of dancing magic that I’m not quite certain how I ever missed, that prickle just across the spine and below the shoulder blades. The distinct presence of power in the place.

She waves a hand out towards me and the spice jumps from it, moves to hover above the soup and slowly sprinkle as she wipes her fingers on her apron. 

“You  _ are  _ a sharp one.” A gesture to me and I go too, forwards, towards her, exceedingly interested all of a sudden. “Will did mention it, maybe, once or twice, in passing, on occasion, for an entire summer or four like one of those records he loves so much got stuck. But it is always pleasant to know reports have not been exaggerated.”  __

The praise puffs my chest a bit, curves my lips and tilts my chin up. The notion that he’d been speaking about me, even before  _ this, _ us, though we were always an us, but perhaps, before we quite knew entirely what we were, pleases me immeasurably as I suspect she’d known it would, her eagle eyes watching the way I watch him. A very different kind of creature, something sleeker that purrs, stretches languidly inside me, uncurls its limbs and shakes to life at the mention of my virtues. I would be quite happy to hear more about this particular train of thought, but pause to add...

“ Will isn’t dull -” 

A remembrance to untwine myself from my smug musings long enough to speak  in his defense though I know she does not mean the implication to insult. “He simply manages to find himself wholly unobservant.”  The words linger on my lips as I say them, chase away the smoldering currents with bittersweet memories that surface without intention, and then drift off, replaced still with something that breathes more nostalgic. “At all the wrong moments.” 

Her head tilts, kind, unsettlingly aware. “Or perhaps his mind was simply otherwise occupied?” A casual suggestion which has the grin pulling back again, in slow drifts. 

“Perhaps.” I agree, brushing away the cobwebs of past with a casual turn of my shoulders. They have been left far behind us, after all, in the dust. “He has some very good distractions often at hand.” 

Good naturedly she allows it. “I did my best to keep him on the right track, called in Old Crawford to get him into all the right places. But I thought it would be best to discover his magic without any kind of interference from me.”

A pause and in the quiet unmoving spaces between us, her words draw clear into my ears. 

_ Some power is best to explore for yourself.  _

A brush of her mind against mine like a gust of summer wind, and then retreated again. “He needed to shape himself on his own, not in the way I did. Though it seems he found company all the same.”  Her fingers lay along my shoulders. “A mind as strong as his.”

“Stronger together.” I offer what I have learned and her smile is older suddenly, in a way she scarcely seems, a little worn, and a little sad. 

Her murmur muses, when she speaks again, faraway on a ripple of memory. “A wonderful thing.” Distant and drifting, dreamy, somewhere only she can see, an expression I’m afraid I recognize. “To share a mind.”  Faint spring rain that ends with a thunderclap as her eyes find me again and brighten, much as mine had, not moments ago.

“But I always thought I’d tell him when he came of age. Not now though, poor Dave, already surrounded by dreamers, we must at least spare him this triple team.” More spices have floated out over the soup as we’ve spoken, a wink and some wine tips itself in as well. “But soon. We can share a secret in the meanwhile, you and I, and I’ll tell him I told you to hush about it when he makes that face that looks like someone’s stolen away a puppy from him.” 

I laugh and allow her, very gallantly, to pull me into a hug, flour and molasses clinging to her skin. 

Just before she lets me go, words play across my thoughts. _ I saw you got him a very nice gift. But I’d hold onto it a little longer if I were you. You’re together just now, no need to think of time apart just yet. Enjoy these days while they’re here.   _

And then with a snap of towel, she’s shooed me out of her domain once more. Before I can even get out the words,  _ You know Jack?  _ from between my lips. But truly, that is quite alright by me, because suddenly there is something much more important for me to do. 

In a kind of content haze,  I stride back into the living room and pause before Will. He looks up smiling, but does not even manage to say hello before I pull him up towards me, ignoring quite thoroughly that his father is sitting there, still, on the couch, and focusing instead on leaning in until our lips find each other’s. Busy myself in kissing him breathless. 

It lasts and lasts, at least until a pillow hits the back of my neck, and a disgruntled glower reminds us loudly.

“Dad in the room. Dad. in. the. room.”

Will looks at me, teeth biting into his lips, but I confess, I do not, for once, fare nearly as well, and in the end, we all burst out laughing. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Will**

* * *

 

On our last day in Louisiana, it storms.

Not when I wake, early, while the world is still dark and undecided, and rise from warm sheets to make coffee. It’s so early that Dad’s still awake, barely, eyes heavy while the TV flickers dim images over the room. He blinks when I pad on socked feet down the hall, mumbles a sleepy  _ hey bud _ . I drink coffee and he two fingers of whiskey, in these moments between night and day where our worlds have always met, and we watch reruns of Friends with the volume turned almost all the way down.

Nor is there even a sprinkling later, when I stand at the foot of my bed, mug still in hand, and decide whether to wake Hannibal or let the weak and watery sun bleed through the curtains and do it for me. He’s on his back, one arm across his chest and the other tossed over his head, legs stretched long and bare beneath twists of blue flannel. I watch the slow rise and fall of his chest a moment too long, and his eyes open, fond and bleary brown, blinking to awareness. The first thing he does is smile.

In the car, the sky has at least started to cloud. Hannibal has no taste for most of my tapes, mixed laughter and wrinkled noses, but the radio doesn’t work, so we listen to the one mix that he at least finds tolerable, turned down in increments of five. A few fat drops spatter the windshield, but I don’t use the wipers. Hannibal stares at them pointedly from the passenger seat, looking strange and uncertain in jeans and boots, but I shake my head, laugh.  _ Don’t back out on me now, you already agreed. _ I tell him it’ll pass. Jim Morrison sings about the River, about mysticated wine, as the trees grow thicker, draped with lacy moss, and no more drops fall.

Thunder crashes at last, but not until we’re a solid thirty minutes’ walk down the winding hiking path. When the rain suddenly pounds down in cold sheets, Hannibal looks towards the sky, betrayed, and then at me, accusing. His hair is plastered to his head, spills into his eyes, and I smile, feeling strangely sheepish. But also, when the thunder drums again, a creeping kind of excitement, an energy a storm has always left me with.  _ This is your fault _ he shouts, looking sad and bedraggled, but I only take his hand, pull him into a race that leaves us both breathless and splattered with mud when we reach the car.

By the time we’re pulling impatiently at wet clothes in the backseat, the storm has become a full-on gale, its pace matching that of our stammering heartbeats and rough hands. But it’s muffled and far inside our world of fogged windows and eager lips. His hands at my hips, and as my shirt is peeled from me, I arch up to steal his warmth, skin on wet skin, moan his name hot and breathy just to watch the change it has on his eyes. He pins my arms above my head, smiles at me—lazy, knowing immediately what I want. When he finally moves in me, arm tucked across my chest, holding me to him better than my own trembling arms, I don’t even dare a breath, scared that if I do I’ll split at every seam, and this time when his name falls from my lips, it’s a silent and desperate plea.

Thunder rolls past us, goes from a crash to a rumble. Lightning flickers silver over the slope of Hannibal’s back, where I trace careful fingers. I am pliant, full of distant, comfortable aches, still feeling the shudders of pleasure in my spine. My fingertips find the raised flesh of a scar, pass over it to raise goosebumps across skin that reacts, and he makes a low, content noise in his chest that reminds me of the storm. He is heavy atop me, his breath still coming rapid, and when he pulls me into a kiss, it is soft and slow. 

“Are you sad, to be going back?” he asks, kissing his way into the space between my neck and shoulder where the skin is thin and shivery. I listen to the rain, like fingers drumming on the roof of the car, and sigh.

“Not… sad.”

When I don’t clarify, he stops mouthing sloppy kisses against my neck and lifts himself to look at me, the whiff of curiosity.

“What then?”

The rain on the window casts strange, weaving shadows across his face, and my thumb follows the path of his cheekbone.

“I dunno. It’s not sad, just… a resigned acknowledgement of change.”

He nods, but his brow furrows, and I stretch so that my bare feet rest against the window, cutting dark shapes through the fog.

“It’s that we’ll never be exactly like this again, you know?”

He chuckles, and it’s husky and rough with sex. I like the sound of it, press my hand between us to his chest where it came from.

“You could say the same of any moment,” he counters, runs the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip.

“Well, yeah, but…” I flush, trying to explain the strange quiet that comes when I think of next summer, and failing. “But this summer, this,  _ all _ of this, it’s just. It’ll be different next year.”

“True,” he says, considering, and his eyes are strangely soft, “We are not children, now. In many ways, we have not been for some time.”

Wind howls around the car, and I shiver, tuck myself closer in the clutch of his arms.

“But we can always come back here,” he adds, “to this place, when the world grows dark.”

I nod under his hand stroking heavy through my hair. Then, biting my lip, I almost don’t suggest it, but in the end it seems too determined a thought to remain inside,

“Maybe next year, home will be somewhere that’s ours.”

I don’t look at him, face hot, but instead at the gray swirl outside, the flicker of blue as the sky snaps with lightning again. But I feel the startle, his caught breath, and the bubbling of disbelieving happiness that he can’t and doesn’t even try to hide from me.

“Perhaps it will.”

I smile, pull him to me again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad that we got to leave summer off on such a positive note—god knows, it was a long time coming. 
> 
> Unfortunately, following that, I do have some sad news. As of today's update, AMOI is on an indefinite hiatus. I'm sorry to only be telling you now; we had hoped to tie the rest of year seven up while we posted summer, but we are ~30k words in with no end in sight. I want to again thank all of you who have stuck with us this far, and I sincerely hope that, when the moment comes, we will see you all again for the last chapter of Will and Hannibal's story (for now). 
> 
> Please [follow the tumblr](http://alternativemeansofinfluence.tumblr.com/) for updates, we promise to keep you posted every step of the way!
> 
> Love,  
> Q


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